Accattone (1961)

A pimp with no other means to provide for himself finds his life spiraling out of control when his prostitute is sent to prison.

Director:

Pier Paolo Pasolini

Writers:

Pier Paolo Pasolini (story), Pier Paolo Pasolini (screenplay),

Stars:

Franco Citti, Franca Pasut, Silvana Corsini

Nominated for 1 BAFTA Film Award. Another 2 wins & 2 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Franco Citti	...	Vittorio "Accattone" Cataldi
Franca Pasut	...	Stella
Silvana Corsini	...	Maddalena
Paola Guidi	...	Ascenza
Adriana Asti	...	Amore
Luciano Conti	...	Il Moicano
Luciano Gonini	...	Piede D'Oro
Renato Capogna	...	Renato
Alfredo Leggi	...	Papo Hirmedo
Galeazzo Riccardi	...	Cipolla
Leonardo Muraglia	...	Mammoletto
Giuseppe Ristagno	...	Peppe
Roberto Giovannoni	...	The German
Mario Cipriani	...	Balilla
Roberto Scaringella	...	Cartagine

Storyline

Pasolini's first film is a painfully realistic study of a pimp in Rome. Vittorio Accattone has never worked a day in his life, and has apparently made a good living prostituting his female companion, Maddalena. But her arrest begins his decline; hungry, he begs from churches and even visits his estranged wife and son. When Stella, a lovely and unbelievably innocent peasant worker, enters his life, Accattone tries to find a way, honest or not, to bring back good fortune...

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Plot Keywords:

pimp | prostitute | perjury | prison | arrest | 

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Genres:

Drama

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Details

Country:

Italy

Language:

Italian

Release Date:

4 April 1968 (USA)

Also Known As:

Accattone!

Filming Locations:

Pigneto, Rome, Lazio, Italy

Box Office

Budget:

ITL 50 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Arco Film, Cino del Duca

Technical Specs

Runtime:

120 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The Rome premiere of Accatone was accosted by the neo-fascist group Nuova-Europa, causing mayhem by violently attacking the audience and vandalising the cinema.

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Quotes

Balilla: Remember us begging as kids? Your crying even upset the cops. But it doesn't work now, its disgusting.

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Connections

Featured in Pier Paolo Pasolini (1995)

User Reviews

Incredibly bleak tale, told without sentiment or moral preaching

The term 'accattone' is an old Italian phrase intended to brand a character with an aura of absolute repulsiveness. Thieves and low-lives would usually coin the term when referring to a character that is so despicable, so without moral or social decency, that even the criminals would look down upon them. In Pier Paolo Pasolini's incredibly assured debut, 'Accattone' is Vittorio (Franco Citti), a low-life pimp who when he is not sitting around squeezing money out of people with wagers and tricks, is abusing his lone prostitute who cannot work after breaking her leg in a motorcycle accident. It's a tale of a despicable scumbag, set during a dark period in Rome, where men viewed working as slave labour, and enjoyed themselves by beating prostitutes to within an inch of their life.

It's an incredibly bleak tale, told without sentiment and moral preaching. Pasolini's doesn't seem to want to dictate a larger social message, or make Accattone a sympathetic character who is the victim of political or social oppression, but to simply tell a tale, a real tale, of a group of low-lives who are the way they are because they want to be. After all, the true soul of neo-realism is to portray life the way actual people experience it, not to romanticise or sentimentalise it with the kind of scripts Hollywood are responsible for. Of course, many neo-realist directors would almost betray the genres roots the kind of way only auteurs can manage, and Pasolini would go on to make more surrealistic and interpretive movies, but this is true neo-realism without any kind of magical reward for the audience, or a moment of redemptive enlightenment for its protagonist. It's a story of grit, one that is thrilling and fascinating in equal measures, and with the stamp of a great director.

The film I felt it more akin to is Luis Bunuel's Los Olvidados (1950), a film of equal disregard for cinematic wonder, and one that is also punctured by an impressive dream sequence. Whilst Bunuel's sequence came around the middle section, and was a burst of absolute surrealistic beauty amongst social depravity, Accattone's comes during its climax; a strange, moody set-piece in which Accattone witnesses his own funeral, amongst other things. At first I felt like it was almost betraying what came before, but then I realised it was Pasolini's way to try and get into its characters head, and the outcome is as confusing and as futile as Accattone himself. Though I haven't seen much of Pasolini's work, this is the best I've seen, beating even the distressing brilliance of his final film Salo (1975). Though he would move away from neo-realism, Pasolini achieves more with his debut than some of the greats of the genre would manage to achieve.

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